By BILL WHITE, SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, October 28, 2004

"We will try to tell the story of this great music from the beginnings," promises executive producer Martin Scorsese, introducing "Salute to the Blues," a benefit concert from Radio City Music Hall last February. That concert is the basis of "Lightning in a Bottle," the most soulful, spirited and life-affirming concert film since Scorsese's own "The Last Waltz."

Scorsese's promise is fulfilled in the first half of the picture. African singer Angelique Kidjo performs her arrangement of "Zelie," a traditional Togo chant. Following her, gospel singer Mavis Staples opens Blind Lemon Jefferson's 1928 "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" with a chain-gang moan. Archival slides accompany many of the performances, including Odetta's chilling version of Leadbelly's "Jim Crow Blues"

Directed by Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day"), "Lightning in a Bottle" bears similarities to Scorsese's film of The Band's farewell concert, from the lighting design and onstage camera setups, to the crosscutting of backstage anecdotes with onstage performances. But where "The Last Waltz" captured a moment in musical history, "Lightning in a Bottle" encompasses 75 years of tradition.

Two standout performances are India.Arie's stark and plaintive "Strange Fruit" and James Blood Ulmer's paralyzingly eerie "Sitting on Top of the World," with unearthly violin accompaniment from Allison Krauss. Archival films of classic masters, such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Son House, are skillfully woven into the live performances. The film's middle section sags with the celebrity mugging of rockers such as David Johanson, Steve Tyler and John Fogerty. It gets back on track with Solomon Burke's gospel-flavored version of "Down in the Valley," the first country-western hit to have been performed by a black artist. A slick montage accompanies Buddy Guy's "Red House" tribute to Jimi Hendrix that shows how much the younger guitarist learned from the elder. B.B. King brings the concert, and the film, to a memorable close with a searing performance of his 1949 hit, "Sweet Sixteen."

Despite some iffy moments, "Lighting" is the closest one to get to the music from which, as Hubert Sumlin notes, "there is no retiring. You stay with it until the end."